Aviation Emissions

Global warming has been a growing concern over the years as emissions continue to grow as well.  What does the world do?  Blame the aviation industry, why not right?  The aviation industry is a pretty easy target to put the blame on, large jets fly the skies every day burning massive amounts of jet fuel into the atmosphere.  However, the aviation industry's carbon footprint is not nearly as high as some other industries.  According to the Air Transportation Action Group, "The global aviation industry produces around 2% of all human-induced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions" (Air Transportation Action Group, 2016).   Doesn't seem too bad right?  They also stated that "Aviation is responsible for 12% of CO2 emissions from all transport sources, compared to 74% from road transport" (Air Transportation Action Group, 2016).  So while the aviation industry is not the worst when it comes to CO2 emissions, there are still some actions that can be taken to lower the footprint that we have on the global warming problem.

The basis of the Paris Agreement for aviation is a good idea.  The idea is that the airlines' carbon emissions in the year 2020 will be set as the upper limit of what carriers are going to be allowed to discharge.  If an airline exceeds this limit in future years (which they are expected to do) "they will be required to offset their emissions growth by buying credits from other industries and projects that limit greenhouse gas emissions" (Lowy, 2016).  The first phase of this agreement, which will take place from 2021 until 2027 will be voluntary and becomes mandatory from 2028 until 2035.  This deal will apply only to international flights, which is responsible for 60 percent of all aviation activity.

President-Elect Donald Trump has stated in the past that he intends to cancel the Paris Agreement because he feels that it would be bad for business.  Whether or not his administration goes through with the cancellation of the agreement, I do not know, but I do know that Trump somehow thinks that global warming was created by the Chinese for the Chinese as a business tactic in a tweet that he posted in 2012.

I feel that to some extent the new regulations are a necessity.  The level at which this plan needs to be carried out, I am not sure.  It seems a little overkill that they are so focused on the aviation industry when in fact the road transportation industry is far worse with the CO2 emissions.  I suppose the deal that they have come up with is better than what I have come up with so I guess I can't look down on their idea too much.

References

Facts & FIGURES - Air Transport Action Group (ATAG). (2016, May). Retrieved November 18, 2016, from http://www.atag.org/facts-and-figures.html

Low, J. (2016, October 06). UN agreement reached on aircraft climate-change emissions ... Retrieved November 18, 2016, from http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2016-10-06/un-agreement-reached-on-aircraft-climate-change-emissions

News, B. (2016, May 27). Donald Trump would 'cancel' Paris climate deal. Retrieved November 18, 2016, from http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36401174